Red Like Rubies
by tiswillard
Summary: ONE-SHOT. PARODY. I'm making fun of Sweenett in this one, just so you know. Sweeney is prepared to tell Mrs. Lovett how he feels about her.


**A/N: I HATEHATEHATEHATEHATE this pairing. Sweenett is a sure-sign that I'm about to die. Hence, this fan fiction here is actually a parody. A parody that made me laugh long before I set out to write it. I never thought I'd be writing a Sweenett, until a writing prompt told me to write about hiding something and never finding it again. I apologize to anyone who may have come here in hopes to read some honest-to-God I'm-serious Sweenett. Because, to me, honest-to-God I'm-serious Sweenett does not exist because, quite simply, this pairing shouldn't exist, and logically **_**couldn't **_**exist. But I have a sick mind and couldn't resist. If you think it's funny, good for you. If you're highly offended, go away. One shot.**

Sweeney had never meant for it to happen. Then again, Sweeney had never meant for a lot of things to happen. He hadn't woken up one morning, in hopes that a judge would wrongly accuse him of nothing, and be the cause of everything bad that happened in his life following. Well, this, Sweeney couldn't blame it on the Judge. He did anyway, of course. Simply because he needed to have someone to blame. He wasn't going to just ease into the idea of Mrs. Lovett taking part in his most personal and lustful fantasies.

Who would have imagined, anyway? Mrs. Lovett was beyond repulsive, with her... everything that was rather perfectly repulsive. Sweeney didn't really know what it was that had him so attracted to her lately, actually. Lack of pretty women (as he and Judge Turpin had recently indulged in a duet about) maybe. Lack of Lucy, actually. That probably made far more sense.

All the woman in the world or not, who was going to go for Sweeney, anyway? No one. No one that he could think of off of the top of his head, anyway. The idea of any other woman ever approaching him seemed rather humorous, actually. No, Mrs. Lovett was obviously attracted to him and had been for a very good time now. He'd just take advantage of that, although it wasn't exactly 'taking advantage of'', having his new previously mentioned lust-ridden fantasies, because she'd likely been having the same fantasies for a long time now.

In short, he'd asked her up for tea that afternoon. She'd been a bit hesitant, obviously as a result of the whole Pirelli incident that had taken place not too long ago. Actually, Mrs. Lovett had all the reason in the world to currently be suspicious of what the hell Sweeney was planning to do. If only she knew, maybe she'd have been a little more excited at the prospect of them having tea upstairs. Together. Alone. If only she had something that could absolutely promise her that she was not about to be killed by Sweeney, she would have been far more reluctant to trudge up those stairs.

You know, all of this would have been far more convincing if Sweeney had actually put some tea in a kettle and placed it on the stove. Damn, he wasn't very good at this. Of course, he never had been good at this. Not even when he was Benjamin Barker, and he was married to Lucy. Before the infamous Judge Turpin actually played any role in his life or he had to worry about a certain Anthony Hope actually _stealing _(and Sweeney couldn't tell whether he wished that was an extreme euphemism or exaggeration) his daughter, who he had this irking feeling he was never going to be seeing again. This was exactly why Sweeney had given into those fantasies he had, before that, been able to completely ignore. Until he realized that nothing was going to work out exactly the way he wanted it to, Sweeney hadn't even noticed his fantasies. All of them had happened in his subconscious, keeping whatever sex drive he had satisfied, without Sweeney knowing exactly what was happening. For all he knew, Sweeney could have been having these thoughts about Mrs. Lovett for as long as eternity; since he was even married to Lucy.

He'd just set the tea kettle on the stove, in hopes to seem like he was actually trying to be _friendly_ with Mrs. Lovett. There was a knock from the door. No other than Mrs. Nellie Lovett was to be expected on the other side. Really, who else was going to be there? The _judge_ for Christ's sake? Yea, sure, when pigs could fly. Although, now looking back, there had been a lot of unbelievable things that had happened recently, a lot of which could match such eccentric things as pigs flying. Like Sweeney noticing his feelings (or more lust) for Mrs. Lovett. That was pretty undeniably eccentric.

"I'm getting it," Sweeney mumbled to himself more than anybody else. He shuffled to the door, double-taking before he reached towards the knob. Maybe he shouldn't be doing this-- but he had to, right? He'd made enough noise while walking to the door for Mrs. Lovett to know that Sweeney was actually inside, so he couldn't really pretend like he wasn't there anymore. Unless he jumped out the window now, but it was always his intention to kill the judge before he committed suicide. Sure, he could kill himself after the judge was dead, but in the meantime, he planned to stay healthy and alive. So he had to go through with it; he opened the door to see Mrs. Lovett. Sweeney tried to smile, but he was aware that, nonetheless, it really hadn't worked that well. He didn't wear smiles too well. "Hello, Mrs. Lovett."

"Hello, Mr. T," Mrs. Lovett smiled, stepping in through the door without waiting for Sweeney to invite her in. Boy, wasn't she bold and ready to go? Sweeney bit his lip before diving into any conversation with Mrs. Lovett; he was headfirst and blind-folded. Neither of which fit him well. He liked to know where he was standing; kind of like he liked to know that the judge was close to being killed. Of course, he didn't know this. Had he known this of course, he would have been very happy about it.

But he _had_ invited her up here for tea, hadn't he? Didn't that usually mean casual conversation? Well, this wasn't exactly casual, although Mrs. Lovett had no business knowing that. Yet. So Sweeney was just going to have to pass the time, doing something else, like apologizing for not having the tea ready. Yea, that made sense. "Sorry that the tea's not ready yet, Mrs. Lovett," Sweeney tried to say smoothly, though he was biting the inside of his cheek. This was not going to go well. "I'm a little behind schedule, as you can tell."

"Oh, that's fine," Mrs. Lovett replied, with her back turned. She must have found this scenario so much easier than Sweeney did. Then again, she wasn't about to announce her love (_lust_) to Sweeney as he planned to do for her, was she? Well, not to Sweeney's knowledge. It would have made the situation far easier, of course. Then again, Mrs. Lovett was still always full of surprises. Like that Sweeney fancied her, of course. But somehow, when Sweeney was in deep thought about all of this, she somehow magically just showed up, right in front of Sweeney. Right in front of his _face_, as a matter of fact. "Now, Mr. Todd. Let's not pretend anything. You asked me to come up here for something more than tea."

_What's that? Sex? No, not really. Wouldn't mind it, but that's not why..., _Sweeney couldn't help but realize he was thinking this to himself. He shook the thought from his head, and looked nervously at Mrs. Lovett. "No, no..." he said, his voice trailing off. Well, actually 'yes, yes...' was the answer, but 'no, no...' was what ironically had come out. "It's just tea." He hesitated. He could always tease Mrs. Lovett, couldn't he? Yes; yes he could. "Why, what did you think 'something more than tea' was?" He cocked an eyebrow at his friend, business accomplice, and lustful fantasy.

"Oh, you know," Mrs. Lovett said, her face still dangerously close to Sweeney's. "Stuff." Sweeney fought not to lean forward and kiss Mrs. Lovett. It was wrong, and he had to explain why he had called her up here in the first place-- God, this was confusing. Sweeney looked at the ground, feeling his cheeks redden. This was not a Sweeney Todd-like thing to do; blush, of course. Yet he was standing there, blushing in the presence of Mrs. Lovett. Hopefully she couldn't actually see his face. Well, Sweeney would do his best to keep her from seeing him.

Turning around, he walked over to the tea. It had a few more minutes to go before it would actually be tea that was worthy enough to drink. He needed to explain this _now_ if he ever planned to get through it. He breathed in sharply before saying anything, for a moment losing all faith in himself. Oh God, he _had_ to do this. It wasn't a question of want anymore, he just really needed to just come out and say it.

"Mrs. Lovett--" he stopped for a moment, tripping on choice of words, "what if there was 'something more than tea' that I called you up here for?"

"Depends, Mr. Todd," Mrs. Lovett replied. The short squeaking noise let Sweeney know that she had dropped into his chair. Sweeney bit his lip, waiting for Mrs. Lovett to continue. "What is this 'something more than tea' that you may have called me up here for?"

"Oh, I don't know," Sweeney said, prepared to take back anything he might want to say, and any hints he may have given that he was about to say it. Of course, life wasn't that easy. He'd learned that a long time ago. "What might you want this 'something more than tea' to be?"

"Why don't you just spit it out, Mr. Todd?" Mrs. Lovett insisted impatiently. She sure had a way of seeing through Sweeney's 'disguises', if they could even be called that. She had known who he was when he'd originally come back to London, shared so many of his feelings, and now probably knew what Sweeney was already planning to say to her. "It can't be that bad."

"Oh, but what if it is?" Sweeney said in a low voice, more to himself than to Mrs. Lovett. Well, it was bad, he knew that. Mrs. Lovett just had this way of making it seem like it wasn't bad, in spite of the fact that she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Well, he would have liked to assume that Mrs. Lovett had absolutely no idea of what he would be talking about, now or come a few minutes. Then again, this was Mrs. Lovett he was thinking about saying this to.

"Mr. Todd?" Mrs. Lovett interrupted his thoughts. Sweeney could feel her standing behind him; apparently he had been so lost in thought that he had somehow managed to miss the fact that Mrs. Lovett had lifted herself out of her chair. Lovely. He had to get out of this. Unfortunately, the only way he could think of actually getting out of this was by getting it over with. He most certainly detested the idea of getting it over with. As a matter of fact, Sweeney found that he was quite honestly chickening out. Goddamnit, he wouldn't allow himself to chicken out.

Step one: the ring.

He had this all written out somewhere. That somewhere was probably burned, too. On purpose, just in case Mrs. Lovett may have accidentally came upon a sheet of paper entitled 'Step by Step Instructions to Tell a Certain Mrs. Lovett That You Love Her'. Oh, yes, that would have been exciting, had she came across the paper.

So he had bought a ring; one so red, to signify love. To signify those beautiful rubies of which his only friends shined. Sweeney only hoped that Mrs. Lovett would accept his proposition to be more than friends, to be, all in all, lustful companions. Not lovers. Far from that-- at least until the Judge was killed. And the ring had been placed in his pocket so carefully about one hour ago. Funny how an hour goes by.

"Shit." The ring was gone.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. Lovett asked from behind him. Sweeney cringed. He couldn't face her alone-- alone meaning without the ring. That was the whole plan. To 'woo' her into being attracted to him with this beautiful red ruby, just in case he had been wrong all this time. Of course, he knew he had been right about her fancying him, but he was being precautious. Mrs. Lovett had been attracted to him (for he had, at least _once_ in his life, been a rather attractive man) for as long as he had known the woman.

For only a moment he contemplated tearing around the rest of the place to find it. The ring, of course. The only problem with any of that was that there was absolutely no place where the ring could have been. It had simply disappeared out of his pocket, which he had thought impossible until now. Nonchalantly, he stuck his hands in all of his other pockets to search for the ring. He hoped that Mrs. Lovett didn't notice, although it didn't really matter. He still couldn't find the goddamned ring.

"Leave," Sweeney's voice croaked. "Leave, now." Unfortunately, Mrs. Lovett did not leave then. She didn't say anything. All she really did was stand behind him and breathe on Sweeney's neck. Sweeney stood there patiently for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek. After she did not leave, he could not take her being in the room anymore. "LEAVE, YOU BITCH!"

He hadn't meant it to come out like that. But it had, unfortunately. He had been so nervous, only to find he couldn't go through with his original plan. He felt bad, yet at the same time he somehow felt refreshed. It was kind of strange how he had just enjoyed screaming at Mrs. Lovett like that. Still, he couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt as the door slammed, as apparently Mrs. Lovett had followed suit and left. Sighing to himself, Sweeney came to the sad conclusion that he was never going to be able to tell Mrs. Lovett the truth.


End file.
